the greater part as luminous and distinct as it is sweeping and magnificent. It will convey a complete conception to whoever will study it attentively of the general nature and object at least of the three first parts of the Instauratio Magna; the latter portion of the work, upon the actual composition of which the author cannot be said to have ever properly entered, seems to have floated somewhat vaguely before his own eye, and it may be said to form a distant back-ground in the picture he has here sketched. In our abstract, we have omitted much of the mere eloquence and illustration, with many ingenious, penetrating, and most felicitously expressed remarks; but we have preserved all the substance of the state

ment.

The

Bacon's adoption of the designation of a new logic, or dialectics, for his proposed method of investigating nature, and his comparison of the method with the vulgar or common logic, are sufficiently accounted for by the use that had come to be made of logical formulæ in the discussion of scientific questions. It is true that the syllogism is the universal form of reasoning, that all demonstration when fully developed and expressed must fall into one or other of the varieties of that form. defect of the scientific reasoning of the schools, therefore, did not consist in its addictedness to syllogistic forms. The most perfect reasoning in the world, that of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, is every where a series of syllogisms. The error of the philosophy, both physical and moral, which formerly prevailed, and against which Bacon directs his attacks, lay in the employment of the syllogism for a purpose for which it was wholly incompetent, which was altogether beside its function and out of its province. A syllogism can establish no absolute truth. Its conclusion may be absolutely true: but all that the syllogism makes out, or professes to establish, is, that it is true provided the premisses are true. A syllogism is only a conditional affirmation. It is a statement that, given certain things, a certain other thing will follow. And one of the advantages which the syllogisms of geometry have is, that their premisses are all pure sup

positions, mere conceptions which the mind forms without having to look beyond itself. We are not denying that the conceptions or suppositions are true. They have in fact the peculiar character of being such that it is impossible for the mind not to believe them to be true. But, for that matter, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments might be delivered in a series of syllogisms. Given, it might be said, so many genies, giants, and enchanters, and such and such effects will follow. The one proposition would be as true as the other; the conclusion would be true if the premisses were true; and that is all that logic can make out in any case. The old writers on science were wont to employ it as if they thought it could do a great deal more. Its proper and only function is the exposition of an argument; they seemed often to think that a correctly constructed syllogism was the sufficient explanation of a phenomenon.

At the same time Bacon is not justified in making this matter of charge against the common logic. There is usually no fault to be found with the mere logic of the old scientific writers. Their conclusions are legitimately deduced from their premisses; and that is all that can be required on the score of logic. The single respect in which their demonstrations are objectionable is, that they often set out from false or insufficiently established premisses; but with the establishment of premisses, as such, logic has nothing to do; its sole office is the deduction of conclusions. Its premisses are assigned to it, or may be assumed at pleasure.

It is true that a false proposition which is adopted as one of the premisses of a syllogism has often been previously obtained as the conclusion of another syllogism. But, although false as a premiss, it may have been true as a conclusion; that is to say, it may have been quite legitimately deduced from other premisses. In that case the fault of the demonstration will still be, as before, that some one or other of the premisses has been false.

The greatest amount of misconception and confusion of thought, however, in regard to these subjects, has been occasioned by Bacon's describing the method he proposes

SECTION II.

THE TREATISE DE DIGNITATE ET AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM; FORMING THE FIRST PART OF THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA.

WHEN the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum was published, by itself, in 1623, it was introduced by a short advertisement from Dr. Rawley, Bacon's chaplain, the more essential portion of which is to the following effect: -"Since it hath pleased my lord to do me the honour of making use of my assistance in setting forth his works, I have thought that it would not be improper for me briefly to inform the reader of some things which concern this First Volume. The present treatise, on the Dignity and Advancement of the Sciences, was published by his lordship eighteen years ago, in the English language, and in two Books only; and was addressed to his majesty, as it still is. Not long afterwards he became anxious to have it translated into Latin; having heard that that was desired in foreign countries, and being, moreover, himself wont often to say that books written in the modern tongues would ere long become bankrupt. He now, accordingly, publishes such a translation, executed by persons distinguished for their eloquence, and revised and corrected, besides, by himself. The First Book is merely a translation, and is very little changed; but the remaining eight, which declare the partitions of learning, and formerly made only one Book, come forth now as a new work. The principal reason which moved his lordship thus to rewrite and amplify the work was this; that, in publishing long afterwards his Instauratio Magna, he appointed the Partitions of the Sciences to be the first part of that work; and to be followed first by the Novum Organum, then by the Historia Naturalis, and so forth. Finding, then, the said

part relating to the Partitions of the Sciences already executed (though less solidly than the dignity of the argument demanded), he thought the best thing he could do would be to go over again what he had written, and to bring it to the state of a satisfactory and completed work. And in this way he considers that he fulfils the promise which he has given respecting the First Part of the Instauration." It had been noted at the end of the Distributio, published with the Novum Organum, that the First Part of the Instauration, comprehending the Partitions of the Sciences, was wanting; but that the said Partitions might in part be gathered from the Second Book of The Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.'

In his Life of Bacon prefixed in English to the Resuscitatio (1657), and in Latin to the Opuscula Posthuma (1658), Rawley speaks of the translation of the 'Advancement of Learning' into Latin somewhat differently from what he does in this advertisement. In the English Life, in enumerating in their order the "books and writings, both in English and Latin," written by Bacon after his retirement, he merely mentions the "De Augmentis Scientiarum, or The Advancement of Learning, put into Latin, with several enrichments and enlargements," as if the translation had been wholly Bacon's own. In the Latin Life he expresses himself more emphatically in there noticing the De Augmentis he describes it as a work which the author bestowed much labour in turning from English into Latin by his own exertions, or as the phrase might almost be rendered, without assistance ;"in quo e lingua vernacula, proprio marte, in Latinam transferendo honoratissimus auctor plurimum desudavit." We must probably, however, understand the meaning of the worthy chaplain to be only that the translation was in part done by Bacon himself; and his words, in truth, strictly taken, do not assert more. In the Resuscitatio Rawley has printed among other Letters of Bacon's one entitled 'A Letter of Request to Doctor Playfer to translate the book of Advancement of Learning into Latin.' There Bacon,

after some explanation of his design in writing the Advancement-in which, he says, he had only taken upon him "to ring a bell to call other wits together, which is the meanest office,' adds, "It cannot but be consonant to my desire to have that bell heard as far as can be. And therefore, the privateness of the language considered, wherein it is written, excluding so many readers; as on the other side, the obscurity of the argument, in many parts of it, excludeth many others; I must account it a second birth of that work if it may be translated into Latin, without manifest loss of the sense and matter. For this purpose I could not represent to myself any man into whose hands I do desire more earnestly that work should fall than yourself; for, by that I have heard and read, I know no man a greater master in commanding words to serve matter. Nevertheless I am not ignorant of the worth of your labours; whether such as your place and profession imposeth, or such as your own virtue may, upon your voluntary election, take in hand. But I can lay before you no other persuasions than either the work itself may affect you with, or the honour of his majesty, to whom it is dedicated; or your own particular inclination to myself; who, as I never took so much comfort in any labour of mine own, so I shall never acknowledge myself more obliged in anything to the labour of another than in that which shall assist it; which your labour, if I can by my place, profession, means, friends, travail, work, deed, requite unto you, Í shall esteem myself so straitly bound thereunto as I shall be ever most ready to take and seek occasion of thankfulness." Doctor Thomas Playfer, or. Playfere, who was Margaret Professor of Divinity in the Univer sity of Cambridge, died in the beginning of the year 1608; so that the letter must have been written before then. Tenison relates, in the Introduction to the Baconiana (1679), that the translation was undertaken and actually begun by Playfer. "The Doctor," he says,

was willing to serve so excellent a person, and so worthy a design; and within a while sent him a specimen of a Latin translation. But men generally come short